Daniel 7:13,14
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Christ Is King Now, Forever and Always
Do you know what this is?
It’s the royal coat of arms for the U.K. When I was a kid, I thought these were so cool. Mythical creatures, mysterious messages, every little detail means something special. I used to dream that there was some royal connection in my family going back hundreds of years and we’d have a coat of arms too.
Of course, when reality set in that my family was not that special, I always thought it would be fun to make a crest. These days there are whole websites for that – glossaries of symbols and their meanings. You could go make a royal coat of arms for your family this afternoon if you wanted to.
In fact, that’s exactly what I want to do with you today, but not for the Metzgers. It’s Christ the King Sunday, so let’s come up with a royal coat of arms for our King, for Jesus, and let’s do that on the basis of Daniel 7.
The coat of arms for the U.K. has a lion on it to symbolize nobility and strength and valour; it has a unicorn to symbolize courage and bravery. Those are the qualities the U.K. wants to be associated with. What qualities of Jesus should we try to convey in his coat of arms?
Daniel gives us a good place to start. He says,
“He was given authority, glory and sovereign power.”[1]
Those are good qualities for a king to have. The question is, what symbols can we use to convey authority, glory and power? Should we use a lion or unicorn like the U.K.?
Or how about these symbols that Daniel mentions earlier in Chapter 7?
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream...
Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were… four great beasts.
“The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle.
[The second] looked like a bear. It… had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth.
[The third] looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads.
[The] fourth beast [was] terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left… it had ten horns.[2]
Wouldn’t these make great symbols for a coat of arms? Better than a unicorn, right? Each of them is fierce and powerful and deadly in its own way. You wouldn’t want to mess with any of these four beasts. They all convey authority, glory and power.
But none of them represent Jesus. They were actually four very real – and very dangerous – kingdoms from earth’s history: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. Each of them was fierce and powerful and deadly in its own way. They all commanded authority, glory and power.
The Babylonians were the ones who invaded Daniel’s homeland and carried him and his fellow Jews off into 70 years of captivity. Babylon was the world power of Daniel’s day. It was bigger, badder and more beastly than any kingdom before it.
…until the Persians came and conquered Babylon. Then the Persians were at the top of the heap. And because they didn’t just conquer Babylon but also defeated more territories and nations around them, they became the biggest and baddest and most beastly.
…until Alexander the Great from Greece came and did the same thing to Persia that Persia had done to Babylon. And then Rome did to the Greeks what the Greeks had done to Persia – each kingdom growing bigger, badder and more beastly.
These are not pictures of Jesus at all. These are pictures of people and nations that tried to claim Jesus’ authority, glory and power for themselves. And even scarier than the descriptions of these nightmarish beasties is the fact that, to a degree, for a time, they succeeded. They won their wars. They conquered people and nations. They sat on the most powerful thrones in the world. For a while.
But no matter how successful they were, no matter how long they sat on that throne, none of them held on to their power forever. Just before our text for today Daniel writes that while they were allowed to live for a period of time, every one of these “beasts [has] been stripped of their authority.”[3]
We don’t have to worry about the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, or the Romans anymore. We don’t have to worry about lions, bears, or leopards – oh my! None of them exist anymore. None of them can threaten us. They’re all toothless, powerless, lost to the sands of time. None of those beasts can claim authority, glory or power anymore.
But there is one who can. That’s the one that Daniel describes in verse 13:
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven.[4]
Here are some things we can put on Jesus’ coat of arms. Let’s start with those clouds.
Clouds may not seem like the best picture to capture authority, glory and power. They’re just water vapor in the sky, right? They can’t fight battles for you or protect you from much more than a sunburn. But this is the perfect place to start, because it helps us understand how Jesus is different than every other king.
Jesus is not a product of this world. His rightful place is in heaven, at the right hand of his Father, the position of authority, glory and power over heaven and earth and all that exists. Heaven is his rightful home, but he came once, and is coming back again, to rule this world.
And he’s doing it as one who looks like “a son of man.”[5]
Compared to a ten-horned beast with iron teeth, a normal human like us doesn’t look all that fierce or powerful or glorious. There’s a reason you don’t see many people on coats of arms.
But the fact that Jesus came from heaven to earth and entered into his own creation, was born of a woman, just like you and me, tells us so much about our King. It means he loves us and will do whatever it takes to help us.
Imagine that you’re Jesus for the first couple thousand years of human history. You’re up there in heaven watching nations like Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome – these fearsome, deadly beasts – wreak havoc on the people you love. You’re up there seeing the devil – that ancient dragon – deceive and tempt people to sin. You’re in heaven and you see a flood of the humans you love in danger of being swept into hell forever. What are you going to do?
We know what Jesus did. He didn’t sit idly by. He didn’t say, “Oh well, we’ll try again next time.” No, he gave up all the authority, glory and power that were rightfully his as the almighty Son of God at the right hand of his Father in heaven, and he came to earth and became a son of man. He lived in flesh and blood, just like you and me. He ate and drank; he walked this earth and breathed this air, just like you and me. He became our brother, so that he could be our Saviour.
Jesus needed to be a man so that he could take our place, so that he could live the perfect life that we were meant to live, so that he could die the death that we deserve for our sin, so that he could rise from the dead and ascend into heaven as the promise and guarantee that you will join him there in your human body too.
To put a person on a royal coat of arms is not the most impressive picture. But it tells us how much God loves us – that he was willing to become like one of us to save all of us. And it was precisely that sacrifice that not only won our salvation, but earned for Jesus the victory parade we read about in Daniel 7:
He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him.[6]
You’ll be there, and so will everyone who believes that Jesus is their Saviour, whether they live in Canada or the Republic of Congo, whether they lived in the 21st or the 1st century. Anyone – everyone – who has ever believed in Jesus gets to look forward to being part of this procession, to line the streets of heaven and give Jesus the glory that he deserves, to praise him because his kingdom will never end.
That’s what Daniel says,
“His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”[7]
That’s why I chose an oval shield. It has no beginning or end – just like Jesus’ kingdom.
That’s kind of weird to think about, isn’t it? Not the concept of eternity, but that Jesus has always, is now and always will rule as the King of kings and Lord of lords. It doesn’t always feel or look that way, does it? It often feels and looks like certain people and governments of this world are in charge.
That’s what Pontius Pilate thought when Jesus was brought to him. He sure didn’t look like a king at that moment. But Jesus was in charge even then. He wanted to go to the cross for you, even though it would mean pain and death for him. That’s the kind of King he is – one who would sacrifice everything to save you. No one understood it at the time. Not the Jews, not Pilate, not Jesus’ own disciples. But now, looking back, with the help of God’s Word, we know what he was up to – our salvation!
Jesus is still in charge now. We may not always understand how. It may not look or feel like it in the moment. But the governments of this world – the four-headed leopards and ten-horned beasts – they’re not really in charge. Jesus is. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. All the empires and nations of this world will eventually flame out, but his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
And that means something for you, right here and right now. It means that you don’t have to fear the beasts. They may have power for a time, but Christ is King forever. They may impact your daily life, but he rules your eternal heart and soul.
It means that you shouldn’t make those monsters your mascots. In other words, don’t hinge your hope on the governments of this world to give you every good thing; put that hope in Christ your King, just as he promises to work all things for your good, to rule all things in heaven above and on earth below, to include you in and make you into his kingdom forever.
And finally, it means that we don’t have to wait to worship him. This picture of Christ our King is not some vague future promise we’re waiting to see fulfilled. Christ rules right now. He is sitting at the right hand of his Father in heaven, ruling over all creation. He lives in your heart by faith and rules in your life on earth so that you can live with him forever in heaven. Don’t wait for him to come back with the clouds of heaven on the Last Day. Praise his name today and every day. Christ is King now, forever and always. To him be authority and glory and sovereign power for ever and ever. Amen!
[1] Daniel 7:14
[2] Daniel 7:1-7
[3] Daniel 7:12
[4] Daniel 7:13
[5] Ibid
[6] Daniel 7:13,14
[7] Daniel 7:14